The joys of being a mother to an adult

I am a very proud mom.  Not an unusual circumstance I know.  I've known a woman who said very proudly, "Mark hasn't been in jail for six months!"  Hard to top that one. Or how about, "Tiffany's infected piercing is just about healed."  Yes, I can see how happy that would make a mother. Yikes. Let's see if I can tell you how I feel about being a mother.

Let me be honest, I am the mother to an only child.  Without going into more detail than anyone wants to know let's just say Mother Nature decided one child was all I could handle and I just ran with it.  To say I have taken being a mother seriously would be a huge understatement.  Up until I had my son, I thought of myself as being a self sustaining, independent human being who could handle anything life threw my way.  That all changed when my son was born: I knew from that moment on I would be vulnerable and that scared me beyond what I can express. From then on, I knew I would try to protect, nurture, and be ever vigilant to make sure my son would thrive.  I would do anything, anytime and without question to provide for my son.  Leap buildings in a single bound?  No problem.

My son was a good student in spite of my involvement. In elementary school, I volunteered in the classroom for one full day a week, every week.  By middle school, I volunteered as a chaperone for field trips, to be on the bus to and from sixth grade camp and the like.  By high school, I was forbidden to show up too often, but still made appearances at each performance and significant event.  He sometimes did the eye roll and there were some things uttered under his breath that indicated his displeasure at my level of involvement.  I smiled and told him to suck it up and just accept his good fortune to have not one but two parents who adored him.  He did not look convinced.

While all my peers with adventurous children were eschewing their independence and struggles to become adults, we got about 17 seconds of teenage angst and the transition to adulthood was complete.  Not because his father and I were stellar parents, but because he was true to himself and got the job done with little fuss.

His father and I divorced while he was in college and when we were apologizing to him about the split, he stopped the conversation immediately and said, "This isn't about me and you do not need to apologize."  Our son had become a wise man when we weren't looking. He graduated from college with the major of his choice even knowing the chances of earning a living with it were remote, but again, he was true to himself.  He figured out a way to follow his passion even though it required having more than one job at a time.  When he moved on to living with friends, his goal was to avoid being one of the 'boomerang" kids, and he has.

Although he will occasionally ask for information (he would never call it advice), he has taken to giving me advice these days.  He has become my financial adviser at times, he has talked me off the ledge when politics were driving me crazy, and has talked me out of purchases I wanted to make, "Mother, you don't need that."  He knows me well enough that when I'm obsessing about something, he smiles knowingly and understands that if he waits long enough I'll get over it.  He is smart mouthed but smart. There is no way to explain how you feel when your previous words of wisdom come out of his mouth aimed at you.  He was paying attention after all. 

He is not perfect and has at times done some bone headed things. He is stubborn beyond all logic, however, he doesn't repeat mistakes and is the first person to laugh at himself when he takes himself too seriously.  He's also the first to laugh at me when I get crazy about some real or imagined bump in the road. He is loyal to his friends and family but feels free to point out our foibles.

He is my pride and joy but don't tell him; it will be our secret.